Theresa May, the home secretary, warned today that cyber warfare is a "growing threat" to Britain, alongside international terrorism.

May outlined the top-priority threats facing the country as a significant rise in resources devoted to cyber warfare, intelligence-gathering and special forces is due to be confirmed in a national security strategy document being unveiled this afternoon.

The document is expected to set out sweeping cuts to the armed forces' more traditional forms of firepower.

The strategy, to be announced by David Cameron in a written statement to MPs, has been drawn up by the prime minister's new national security council as part of an assessment of Britain's defence needs that he commissioned after taking power in May.

The home secretary was today pressed to explain how cyber warfare could be seen as being on an equal footing to the threat from international terrorism.

May told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that it wasn't "terribly helpful at this stage to talk about equal threats, or not".

The national security council had been given the task of identifying a number of threats, she said, within which there were some "very key priority threats", namely cyber warfare and international terrorism, but in "no particular order".

"What's important is for us to look at the priorities and how we should be addressing those," she said.

May said that 51% of malicious software threats that have ever been identified occurred in 2009.

The home secretary said: "It's a threat to government, it's a threat to businesses and indeed to personal security. We have identified this as a new and growing threat in the UK and you just have to look at the figures – in fact 51% of the malicious software threats that have ever been identified were in 2009."

William Hague, the foreign secretary, singled out cyber attacks as a threat yesterday, telling the BBC that the government would "have to make sure we are equipped for the 21st century".

Iain Lobban, the director of GCHQ, the government's eavesdropping and encrypting agency, last week used his first public speech to call for an aggressive approach to cyber attacks, and warned of the dangers of adopting the sort of defensive strategy famously symbolised by France's Maginot line, which was meant to repel the Germans and failed.

The government's national security strategy will be set out today, and the strategic defence security review will be announced tomorrow by the prime minister, setting out how these threats would be tackled.

On international terrorism, May said Britain now faced a "very serious threat". "That is why we have a threat level that is at 'severe', which means an attack is highly likely," she said. "We must all be vigilant."

In a separate interview this morning, May said the coalition government was the first government to set up a national security council, appoint a national security adviser, and bring together all aspects of security.

"We believe that obviously fundamental for the government is keeping the UK and its citizens safe," she said. "Within that, we will be making some choices about where the priorities need to lie and how the resources should be allocated, in order to maintain that, in order to ensure we can have a secure and resilient UK and that we are also able to play a role in keeping the rest of the world stable as well."

But Chatham House, the respected foreign affairs thinktank, warned that the review had been conducted too quickly, with "limited time for strategic reflection and ideas".

Paul Cornish, the author of the Chatham House report, said: "With no more than six months to prepare and publish the white paper, the 2010 strategy review has been conducted at a very fast pace. With such a brisk timetable, there has been limited time for strategic reflection and ideas.

"The risk is the outcome could therefore be a review which is driven neither by strategic ideas nor by financial decisions. Reviews of UK security and defence strategy usually fail, either because the mismatch between strategy and budget becomes too great, or because of a failure to identify and anticipate security and defence challenges as they evolve. It is unlikely that the 2010 strategy review will be so successful as to entirely disprove his prediction."

Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said ahead of today's statement: "The government seem to be producing a reheated security strategy to provide cover for a rushed defence spending review, rather than producing a renewed and careful consideration of the UK's defence and security priorities.

"The government should show renewed vigour in the process towards a political settlement in Afghanistan, led by the Afghans, while supporting our 10,000 troops with the resources they need in creating the conditions on the ground for a more stable country."

Cooper said "new and emerging threats" needed to be addressed, such as cyber warfare and ambitions by terrorist groups to get hold of biological or chemical weapons, as well as efforts to prevent conflict in failing states.

"The government should also show more diplomatic activism in the Middle East, and be at the forefront of European Union support for the continuation of direct talks," she said.

In a separate report, a committee of MPs warned that the UK's national interest is threatened by a lack of strategic thinking at the heart of government.

The cross-party public administration select committee identified a tendency for Whitehall to "muddle through" and pointed to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as examples where there had been a lack of overarching strategy.

The committee called for the remit of the national security council and national security adviser, Sir Peter Ricketts, to be expanded to include a central co-ordinating role on national strategy.

About this article

Theresa May warns of growing threat of cyber warfare

This article was published on
the Guardian website
at 09.02 EDT on Monday 18 October 2010.
It was last modified at 23.01 EDT on Monday 19 May 2014.
It was first published at 05.05 EDT on Monday 18 October 2010.